British Airways Flight Loses Wheel After Vegas Takeoff, Lands Safely

A British Airways flight bound for London lost a main landing gear wheel shortly after takeoff from Las Vegas on Monday evening, but the aircraft safely completed its transatlantic journey with hundreds of passengers on board.

Flight BA274, an Airbus A350-1000, departed Harry Reid International Airport around 9:05 p.m. local time on January 26. As the plane lifted off from runway 26R, the right rear wheel of its main landing gear detached and rolled across the runway. The incident was captured on an automated livestream from Flightradar24, showing sparks from the gear moments before the wheel fell away about 40 seconds into the departure roll. No one on the ground was injured, and the detached wheel caused no reported damage to property or people.

Once the aircraft reached cruising altitude, the cabin crew conducted an immediate engineering review. After consulting with airline operations and engineering teams, the crew determined the plane remained safe to continue the more than nine-hour flight, relying on the A350's design with 12 wheels on the main landing gear for redundancy. The flight proceeded across the Atlantic without further issues and landed uneventfully at Heathrow...